Four fellow Republicans in the primary have argued that
voters seeking change should recoil from nominating Coats for
the seat being vacated by Senator Evan Bayh, a Democrat. Even if
Coats wins -- he leads in the polls -- Democrats believe he will
emerge battered and plan to recycle the attacks on him.

“He sold out Indiana and left 10 years ago and never came
back, so he’s going to have some problems explaining a lot of
that stuff in a general election,” said Dan Parker, chairman of
the Indiana Democratic Party. “His votes and his record as a
lobbyist are a huge problem if he becomes the nominee.”

Besides Indiana, primaries are being held today in North
Carolina and Ohio, to be followed later in May by seven contests
that will collectively begin to define what November’s ballots
will look like. States with Senate primaries on May 18 include
Arkansas and Pennsylvania, where Democratic incumbents Blanche Lincoln and Arlen Specter face challenges.

Democratic Contender

The Republican winner in Indiana likely will take on
Democrat Brad Ellsworth, 51, who represents a U.S. House
district that has been one of the nation’s most politically
competitive. State Democratic leaders are expected to designate
Ellsworth as the party’s Senate nominee later this month.

Coats led in a poll conducted April 22-26 of likely
Republican primary voters, though with support from barely more
than a third on those interviewed. He had 36 percent; John Hostettler, a former House member, placed second with 24 percent,
followed by state senator Marlin Stutzman at 18 percent.

Hostettler, who lost his House seat in 2006 to Ellsworth,
offers himself as a “reliable conservative,” questioning
Coats’s credentials by pointing to the ex-senator’s support for
some gun control measures while in office.

DeMint Support

Stutzman has the backing of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican who is funding more conservative candidates
within the party. DeMint has described Stutzman as the
“conservative outsider” who will take on the “Washington
establishment.”

Coats, though, received the biggest share of support in the
Survey USA poll -- 30 percent -- among likely Republican primary
voters who identify with the Tea Party.

“Despite the anti-Washington persona of much of the Tea
Party movement, its Indiana supporters are more supportive of
the ‘establishment’ candidate Dan Coats than other candidates,”
the center said in its poll analysis.

Coats was elected to the U.S. House in 1980 and appointed
to the Senate in 1989 to replace Republican Dan Quayle, who had
become vice president. Coats won his own term in 1992; six years
later he declined to seek re-election.

Carpetbagger

Democrats are gearing up to paint Coats as a carpetbagger
because he has lived in Virginia since 2005, after serving four
years as ambassador to Germany for then-President George W. Bush.

“I know how Washington works, and I know how Washington
doesn’t work,” Coats said in an interview yesterday. “Right
now, Washington doesn’t work and I want to go there to make it
work.”

Coats called the attacks against him and his lobbying work
“false, totally misleading and factually wrong.”

He released a financial disclosure report last week that
showed $603,609 in salary during 2009 and the first two months
of 2010 from the Washington office of King & Spalding LLP.

In 2008, Barack Obama became the first Democratic
presidential candidate to carry Indiana in 44 years. The race to
replace Bayh, though, is rated as leaning toward a Republican
win in November by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in
Washington.

“Glad to see you’re running again,” said Joyce Lowry, a
therapist who lives in the town.

Lowry and her husband, Jim, said they plan to vote for
Coats, and aren’t bothered by his lobbyist work.

“I don’t see it being a problem this fall, particularly
since he will be running against a guy who voted for the health-
care bill,” Jim Lowry said, referring to Ellsworth’s backing of
the measure Congress enacted in March.